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I’d Love to Wear Costumes for a Living

Since Halloween is just around the corner and costume warehouses have popped up again just for the season to get us all in the Spirit, I’ve been thinking about whether it’s just easier to dust off and re-purpose an old costume. I love to dress up. I danced ballet, tap, toe and jazz for years growing up and loved the costumes we got to wear at each year-end recital… i also loved being raised up from below the stage in front of the row of floor lights with 20+ other girls, arms entwined behind each others’ backs, one knee bent, ready to high kick our way into the finale! Give me a top hat and some tap shoes and I’m in heaven!

But I love the costumes. Sequins, fishnet tights, tulle, tutus, tails, whatever it was I loved it. Over the years, I remember Cindy and I were chickens once, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, belly dancers, French jazz dancers, oh so many costumes… and mom spray painting our shoes to match! I still think back to how my friends sat through two acts of a very long (often boring) recital and wonder why they did it… maybe it was the pineapple parfaits at DQ afterwards? 🙂

But, I digress, my topic here is that I’d love to wear costumes for a living… within some parameters, that is.

For example, I would not want to be a costumed hot dog walking the streets handing our coupons for Harvey’s or some such. I imagine the costume is hot and uncomfortable and people forget that you are human, just trying to do your job… I doubt anyone leads you around by hand as they do with Chuck E at Chuck E Cheese.

And some uniforms really rank right up there with have the standard red and yellow colors in their theme, which supposedly encourages hunger thoughts. I also would hate to be a mascot or Santa – there’s something pervy about those jobs that I’d have them included in the Dirty Jobs TV show for another reason altogether!

No, I think I’d love to be an actor (or play one on TV). Or work in a costume store and get to wear a new costume everyday! Or better still, work in costumes for a live stage show, like in Vegas. Now, that would be cool, although I imagine they are sewing and repairing as much as creating, but what fun would it be to make costumes for a show?

But back to being an actor, or better yet a comedian from the old variety shows. Like Laugh In, the Carol Burnett Show, or my favorite: I Love Lucy. Wouldn’t you love to be so funny that you had your own show, people laughed at everything you did or said, and you got to wear a new costume each week? Well, that was Lucy and Ethel, and Ricky and Fred for that matter, but mostly the ladies.

Here’s Lucy in some memorable costumes:

I Love Lucy

Lucy as a Marx Bros

Ethel and Lucy play ball

Ethel as a flapper

Carol Burnett and Lucy as janitors

Super bug?

Lucy as a Gypsy

Ethel and Lucy as Candy Factory Workers

Lucy promoting Vegamite

Lucy as a grape stomper

Lucy as Charlie Chaplin with Mickey Rooney

Lucy as Ballet Dancer

Lucy as Jester

Ethel and Lucy as Handymen

Lucy as Cleopatra

Ethel and Lucy as Geishas

Lucy and Ricky as Highlanders

Lucy as Carmen Miranda

Lucy as a toothless Janitor

Lucy goes hillbilly with Dinah Shore

Lucy plays the sax with Carol Burnett

Not only was she funny, Lucy was beautiful… I often think she tried to hide her beauty behind the jokes… and she was pragmatic and smart. Read some of her wise words:

“I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than the things I haven’t done.”

“I’m not funny. What I am is brave.”

“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself first to get anything done in this life.”

“It’s a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.”

And here are some of her wise cracks:

“If you want to find trouble, find yourself a redhead.”

“Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead.”

I Love Lucy, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, My Three Sons … oh, those were the days! These days we have vampires and reality TV… hmm…. ’nuff said here, too.